Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, January/February 1998, Pages 57-61

Other People's Mail

Some letters by or to other people are as informative for our readers as anything we might write ourselves.

Irony Concerning Moskowitz

To The Washington Post, Sept. 30, 1997 (as submitted).

In his letter of Sept. 17, 1997, entitled "Jerusalem: 50 New Apartments," Dr. Irving Moskowitz veils some harsh realities which he either chooses to ignore or is unaware of, given his residency 8,000 miles away in Miami Beach.

It is supreme irony for Dr. Moskowitz to imply racism in objections to an Israeli-only settlement in the heart of a Palestinian neighborhood, when the Palestinian population of Jerusalem itself is the daily victim of a deliberate policy of discrimination. Documented by both the U.S. Consulate and Israeli human rights organizations, this discrimination was directly addressed by the U.S. secretary of state during her recent visit to the region. It consists, in Secretary Albright's words, of "seizing of Arab lands, demolishing Arab homes, settlement expansion and construction of Jewish homes in East Jerusalem."

The issue is not whether Jews have a right to live in East Jerusalem: it is whether Arabs will have the right to live anywhere in Jerusalem. Since occupying East Jerusalem in 1967, Israel has seized land and built housing there for over 175,000 Israelis, in contravention of international law, U.N. Security Council resolutions and U.S. policy. Meanwhile, most East Jerusalem Arabs are effectively barred from building on their own land, in a blatant effort to drive them out. In West Jerusalem, moreover, where most privately-owned land was in Arab hands before 1948, when 60,000 Palestinians were driven out of their homes, non-Jews are barred by law from purchasing or leasing most properties (Jewish National Fund property, "state land," and land under control of the Custodian of "Absentee" Property—i.e. stolen Arab land), and are barred from renting in segregated Jewish-only neighborhoods. Where is the racism in this picture?

While Dr. Moskowitz can fly in from Miami Beach and use his millions and the vast power of the Israeli state to expand the sphere of Israeli control in Arab East Jerusalem, while further shrinking the already limited areas where Arabs can live in this highly segregated city, and while he can have Israeli citizenship for the asking (although he chooses not to exercise this option, as some Israelis have bitterly pointed out), thousands of native Palestinian Jerusalemites have been robbed of their property by main force or a plethora of legal subterfuges, and are denied residence in the city of their ancestors.

There is "racist demagoguery" aplenty surrounding the issue of Jerusalem, but it lies mainly beneath the disingenuous pieties of those like Dr. Moskowitz who are in fact working to establish Israeli settlers throughout East Jerusalem and extinguish its Arab character as a step toward its complete and final absorption into the Jewish state. Such an aim is antithetical to anything which can legitimately be called a "peace process."

Dr. Rashid Khalidi, Director, Center for International Studies, University of Chicago, President, American Committee on Jerusalem

A Classic Example of Distortion

To The Jerusalem Monitor, Sept. 30, 1997 (as submitted).

The letter written by Dr. Irving Moskowitz which appeared in The Washington Post on Sept. 17, 1997 is a classic example of distortion propaganda, makes false assumptions and then attempts to reach "logical" conclusions.

The truth of the matter is that East Jerusalem is an integral part of the occupied Palestinian territory since 1967, to which the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1948 applies. The Convention prohibits the transfer of the citizens of the occupying power to any part of the occupied territory, and its applicability was reaffirmed by the United Nations Security Council in 25 resolutions, in addition to being reaffirmed in scores of resolutions of other United Nations organs. All of those resolutions reflect the virtual international consensus on this matter. Accordingly, building settlements or transferring settlers to Ras al-Amoud or any other part of occupied East Jerusalem is illegal under international law and only represents part of the Israeli attempt to colonize and Judaize the Holy City. Other such measures include the closing and isolation of the city, confiscation of identity cards from Palestinian Jerusalemites, and making any normal daily functions of Palestinians as difficult as possible.

Israeli actions in Jerusalem also aim at prejudging negotiations between the parties on the status of the city, which is scheduled to take place during the final status negotiations. As such these actions also violate the agreements reached and undermine the Middle East peace process as a whole.

Jerusalem is a city holy to the three monotheistic religions and does not accept exclusive ownership such as that which fanatic Jews like Moskowitz are trying to achieve. People need to coexist together, but for this to happen they must first learn to respect each other's rights.

Dr. Nasser Al-Kidwa, Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations

You're Offering Gross and Stereotyped Generalizations

To Harper's Magazine, July 30, 1997 (as submitted).

In the aftermath of yet another bombing in Jerusalem, no doubt many of your readers are shaking their heads and tsk-tsking at the apparent truth of your assertion in June's Index that one in three Palestinians "approve" of suicide bombings. It's enough to confirm what they already want to believe: bombing Arabs, terrorist Arabs.

But I don't buy your "one in three" statistic because I don't know a single Palestinian who "approves" of suicide bombings —and I'd like to know what constitutes "approval" anyway. The Israeli government gets terrific mileage out of statistics like these, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was one they made up. No one suspects that perhaps there is a larger context within which these bombings could somehow make sense. I live here, and I don't have to look far in order to understand that, under the circumstances, they make a great deal of sense. Am I approving, according to your definition? Does that make me one of the "one in three"?

To put it bluntly, what Palestinians have to put up with on a daily basis would make anyone bomb a bus. I wish every American could experience it for just a single day. The harassment and humiliation of passing the checkpoint, the filthy language and foul attitudes of the soldiers toward people who are only trying to go to work or to the hospital or to visit their families. I'm sick to death of the glazed expression well-meaning Israelis get when I mention the checkpoints, the closures, the water rationing, the unemployment, the land confiscations, the house demolitions. How many Americans would like to share our most recent experience of eight days without a drop in the taps? That's eight days without drinking water, without bathing water, without water for washing hands or brushing teeth, never mind the dishes and clothes stacked to the ceiling and crawling with ants and flies. And I had the particular pleasure of cleaning up my four-year-old's vomit without the benefit of water last week when she contracted a stomach flu and threw up repeatedly over a 24-hour period. But I know the whole point of this "one in three" statistic is that anyone who "approves" of suicide bombings must be something less than human—and if you're less than human, you can't possibly experience lack of water as dehumanizing.The editors of Harper's have now made their own little contribution to their dehumanization, demonstrating the shallowness of their insight and the depth of their contempt for their suffering—along with Netanyahu and his laughable four-month self-study course in Arabic, which was also mentioned in the June index. But the fact of the matter is that whether young Palestinians bomb or refrain from bombing, their situation remains virtually the same—desperate, intolerable. We should ask ourselves not why they commit these bombings but why they do not do it more often!

A. Nassar, West Bank, Palestine

Defying the Israeli Trespassers

To the New Orleans Times-Picayune, July 30, 1997 (as published).

Re: "Rubber bullets vs. stones," Letters, June 28. Alfred Hillel alleges that Israeli soldiers use ferocity only to defend themselves against Palestinian attacks with stones and firebombs.

He doesn't mention that the reason Israeli soldiers are attacked in the first place is that they are an occupying force trespassing on the land of others. The savage oppression the Palestinians have been reeling under is why they, lacking of other means, find themselves resorting to stones to defy one of the most ferocious machines of oppression since the Nazis.

No wonder, then, that Mr. Hillel is annoyed that good Americans like Elmo Romagosa ("Explain about rubber bullets," Letters, June 24) are beginning to understand and sympathize with the Palestinian cause.

Ibrahim Alloush, New Orleans, LA

"Who Gains?"

To the International Herald Tribune, Aug. 26, 1997 (as submitted).

Your recent front-page analysis (IHT, Aug. 25) of the Arafat/Netanyahu contre-temps, in its very last sentence, touched upon an intriguing, important and generally unreported element of the Middle East conflict. After noting Netanyahu's observation that Arafat can embrace either peace or Hamas, but not both, Mr. Drozdiak ended his piece with, "However, it was his own government that released Abdel Aziz Rantissi, the Hamas political leader whom Mr. Arafat publicly kissed, from an Israeli jail earlier this year."

It's a shame the piece stopped there, for that last bit probably set many of your readers to thinking. Some may have recalled that Netanyahu's government also refused to extradite Dr. Abu Marzouk, the alleged Hamas "mastermind" who languished for many months in an American jail, generally (through press releases and leaks) accused of acts of terrorism in Israel, sort of accused of a connection to the World Trade Center bombing, and ultimately accused of....nothing, and released.

Indeed, there does almost appear to be a tacit understanding between Hamas and Netanyahu's Likud Party. Both would very much like to derail the Oslo accords. Both are strengthened in their political positions by the polarization of their respective constituencies, and thus by the violent acts of the other side which cause that polarization. There even seems to be an agreement about tactics: one party straps the bombs around their stomachs; the other drops them out of airplanes. Neither seems overly concerned about civilian casualties.

Finally, some of your readers who pick up the odd mystery novel will know that a standard technique in the investigation of criminal acts is to ask, "Who gains?" For years there have been rumors and allegations of contacts, "information" sharing and even financial connections between the right wing in Israel and the radical Palestinian organizations. That would be an interesting avenue of inquiry for your analysts.

Stephen Green, Rome, Italy

(Washington Report editor's note: Stephen Green is the author of Living by the Sword: America and Israel in the Middle East and Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations With a Militant Israel, both available from the AET Book Club catalog starting on page 135 of this issue.)

A Tribute to Rabbi Berger

To The Austin American-Statesman, Dec. 3, 1996 (as submitted).

Regarding the story (Dec. 2) "Netanyahu approves construction of homes in occupied Jordan Valley," the Israeli prime minister is making it clear that a trade of illegally occupied land for peace is not on his agenda. With no objection from the Clinton administration, Netanyahu feels free to proceed with his plans to divide and subdivide the West Bank and Gaza with Jews-only highways and settlements peopled by armed ultra-Orthodox Jews. Thus, tightening the screws on the Palestinians until economic and human-rights conditions are so grim they will have to leave this part of their ancestral land that is not within Israel's pre-1967 U.N. designated borders.

The Clinton administration, like many before it, has taken the teeth out of any United Nations resolutions condemning Israel's land-grabbing, settlement building and horrendous human rights violations against the Palestinian people. The U.N. should be handling the "peace process," but the U.S. has taken that task to protect Israel...and protect political campaign contributions from pro-Israeli organizations and political action committees.

Theodor Herzl, founder of modern Zionism, said, in 1895, that the population of Palestine should be "spirited" (i.e., carried away secretly and swiftly) across the border; that "both the process of expropriation and removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." What a fine gentleman was he! We U.S. taxpayers are contributing greatly to securing Herzl's goals. Should we be proud, or, if Christian, happily see this as fulfilling biblical prophecy?

In October 1996, a great American Jew died. He was Reform Rabbi Elmer Berger. I don't remember seeing any tribute to him in the Statesman, but the Nov./Dec. issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs did have one. Writer Norton Mezvinsky quoted Berger's definition of Judaism: "Judaism is to do justice and to have mercy and to walk humbly with God: and all the rest is commentary and of secondary importance."

William V. Kelly, Austin, TX

Spread The Link's Message

To Dr. John Mahoney, Americans for Middle East Understanding, New York, NY Oct. 6, 1997

Your latest issue of The Link reminds even us old-time Israel watchers that despite all the media talk about U.S. policy, our annual aid to Israel is never mentioned in the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian peace equation. I can't imagine how Dick Curtiss found the time to produce this study for AMEU, particularly because it is much more than a polemic.

I enclose a contribution to AMEU, which I hope will cover the cost of mailings of Volume 30, Issue 4, to the attached list of congressmen, churches, libraries and organizations in Minnesota.

C. Patrick Quinlan, Edina, MN

Trampling Human Rights is Terrorism

To the Atlanta Constitution, March 23, 1996 (as published).

I strongly disagree with the letter writer critical of the photo of the grieving Palestinian woman shortly after Israeli soldiers blew up her home. Destroying homes of innocent people is wrong and a violation of human rights, period. If Israel's policy of destroying homes of terrorists' families is the right thing to do, then why are Jewish terrorists such as Baruch Goldstein, who killed 29 innocent Palestinians, and Yigal Amir, who killed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, not treated in the same manner? The families of the Jewish terrorists live in their comfortable homes while the families of Palestinian terrorists are left homeless.

James David, Marietta, GA

Selective Democracy

To the Washington Times, May 29, 1997 (as published).

Jack Payton ("Holding Arafat Accountable," Commentary, May 23) writes, "When it comes to things like human rights and democratic principles, we've been cutting Yasser Arafat a lot of slack lately."

Really? Were we cutting him slack on issues of democracy as so many in the United States demanded that Mr. Arafat round up Hamas activists? Because of their political beliefs, members of Hamas—most of whom have never touched a gun—were imprisoned.

Apparently we are to condemn the Palestinian Authority's repression when it is against those who sell land to Jews or those who speak favorably of aspects of Israeli government, but we compel Mr. Arafat to crack down on certain Palestinians who are critical of Israel.

There is no more undemocratic principle than applying democratic principles selectively.

Sam Husseini, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Washington, DC

Map Corrections Needed

To Mr. Clayton Jones, Editor, International News, The Christian Science Monitor, Boston, MA, March 21, 1997

Some of the maps which you are publishing need correction. This is not a question of what is or is not "p.c.," rather this touches upon extremely sensitive political realities.

At present, East Jerusalem is occupied territory, with the Green Line going through the middle. Some of your maps, done by "staff," show the Green Line detouring so as to include all of Jerusalem, East and West, within the 1948 Israeli borders.

True, it is "just a map," but it is a crucial map which is informing people of a crucial region. Many people do not have the background to notice the mistake; thus their impressions of the region are formed by this erroneous graphic. I think that you may be unaware of this problem, as Dave Hering's maps are free of this. However, I have written before on this issue, and I hope that you will pay attention to fixing it.

I am sure it is unintentional, but you are doing with your graphics what the bulldozers are doing to Jabal Abu Ghneim—except that your mapping includes a much larger swathe of territory, and many more eyewitnesses, i.e., readers.

Please correct the Jerusalem maps immediately. I am enclosing some maps which you may find useful as guides.

Annie C. Higgins, Chicago, IL

cc: Dave Hering, Maps.

(Washington Report editor's note: A June 13 letter from Ms. Higgins thanked the CSM international editor for correcting Jerusalem maps subsequently published by the newspaper.)

Guilty of Willful Distortion

To the Whittier Daily News, Sept. 23, 1997 (as published).

A.M. Rosenthal's article "Arabs Waging 50-Year War on Israel" (Sept. 11) is as full of misinformation, distorted history, propaganda, disinformation, lies and untruths as any I have ever read on this subject, and many have been written.

The twistings and turnings of realities and truths is masterfully done, but he does a disservice to his readers, the Arabs, the Israelis who truly want peace, and Jews throughout the world who might read his words and believe them.

Rosenthal could be accused of ignorance, but I believe he knows the truths but just does not want to admit them or acknowledge them. He has his own agenda, and he follows it. He adds to the confusion, and his distortions and false claims hurt the efforts for peace and are damaging and dangerous. His consistency in his support of Israel is obvious. It is only his honesty, his motives and his destructive manipulations I question.

He knows the Palestinians have been and still are the victims of Israeli aggressions and land grabs that have gone on for decades. He knows Israel wants to retain power and control over the Palestinians, their land, their water, and Israel wants to be the economic leader in the Middle East with the Arab nations subservient to it.

He knows that at least 10 times as many Palestinians have died during the long conflict as Israelis, and they are the victims. Palestinians have been driven from their homes and villages, massacred, imprisoned, exploited, tortured, mistreated, humiliated and denied the human rights Americans claim to believe in. Their dispersal has disrupted surrounding nations and added to regional turmoil.

As long as writers like Rosenthal continue to ignore truth and realities, distort history, slant the news and write without being totally honest with themselves, there will be no peace in Israel and the occupied territories.

As long as editors print the words of these writers without rebuttals, Americans will continue to be misinformed and unable to understand the role Americans play in this ongoing tragedy, and innocent people, Israelis and Arabs, will suffer and die. And guilty, arrogant manipulators will never admit the role they have played and the suffering and destruction they have caused.

Florence Richards, Whittier, CA

A Crime of the 20th Century

To The Washington Post April 29, 1997 (as submitted).

Herewith a protest against the consistent immorality (with consistent Washington Post support) of American policy in Palestine, and especially against the complicity of American Jews in one of the great international crimes of the 20th century.

Since World War II the United States has colluded in the "ethnic cleansing" of the greater part of an entire people—the Palestinian Arabs—from a land they inhabited for over a thousand years, and has aided in their replacement by millions of Jews from Eastern and Western Europe, Russia, the Middle East and the United States. The putative moral basis for this U.S. action? That Jews were there "first" and, more popularly, God gave them the land. As for "first," the city of Jericho was inhabited at least 10,000 years ago; may one ask who lived in the land during the 7,000 years before David and Solomon? And should Western Europe be given back to the Celts, who occupied it in 1000 B.C.? As for God's gift of the land to the Hebrews, it should be noted that God also gave all the cattle in the world to the Masai in Africa, according to their legends. The hard fact, of course, is that Jews have been able to colonize and conquer Palestine because they manipulated first the English and then the American governments into supporting their objective.

The events that have taken place in Palestine, especially in the past 50 years, are evil—evil in the sense that the Jewish Holocaust was evil and that South African apartheid was evil. There were not 25,000 Jews in Palestine in 1875. But since the late 19th century the encroaching Zionists have used a combination of money, political manipulation of the Great Powers, naked military aggression, terrorization of the resident Arabs, and finally outright expropriation to increase their hold on the land and steadily remove the former populace. Even at the time of the 1947 partition, Palestine was still two-thirds Arab, and over 90 percent of the land was owned by Arabs. Yet United Nations resolutions, world indignation and earlier United States policy have simply been ignored because of the growing power of the Israel lobby in the American political system.

The current "peace process" in Palestine, which has the ritual approbation of everyone in the public forum, represents the final surrender of the Palestinian Arabs. Arafat has become a quisling striving to hold on to the remains of his former power. In Israel, the only difference between Likud and Labor (just as between "liberal" Jews and rabid Zionists in the U.S.) is that between the "good cop" and "bad cop." The difference is one of method, but all have the same objective—Israeli aggrandizement. Despite international law and previous U.S. policy statements, all forbidding the acquisition of land by military conquest as well as the colonization of conquered land, the West Bank Palestinians have been increasingly squeezed into Bantustans surrounded by Israeli roads, Israeli military installations and Israeli settlements. In Arab Hebron, 400 armed Israeli "settlers" protected by 2,000 Israeli troops occupy 20 percent of the city, while 120,000 Arabs hold on in the remaining 80 percent. A vocal and growing segment of Israeli opinion demands "transfer" of all remaining Arabs from Palestine because, as some put it, there are "too many Arabs on too much valuable land."

The chief culprit in this continuing crime against humanity is not the Jews in Israel but Jews in the United States. The latter are more numerous and infinitely more powerful than their Israeli co-religionists. It is American Jews who have used huge (often disguised) political contributions, carefully targeted political pressures throughout American society, and virtual domination of American communications media to cow the Congress and attain what has now become complete control of Clinton administration policy. The current secretary of state, secretary of defense and national security adviser (the entire national security team) are all of partial or full Jewish heritage and all strong partisans of Israel. The great international enemies of Israel—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria and the Sudan—have become the chief foreign "enemies" of the United States. When Israel invades Lebanon, slaughters civilians at Qana, or blatantly defies world opinion by building Jewish settlements in Arab East Jerusalem, it is the United States alone that defends Israel, pliantly doing the bidding of the American Israel lobby.

Is this just anti-Semitism? For what it is worth, I am a lifelong liberal Democrat; I have a doctorate in government; and I have spent much of my working life as an analyst of U.S. foreign and military policy. I have seen U.S. policy subverted, step by step, by the supporters of Israel. I have watched as American Jewish supporters of Israel mounted undercover campaigns to remove from political power anyone—such as Senators Fulbright and Percy, Representatives Findley and McCloskey, Presidents Carter and Bush—who even hinted at "evenhandedness" in U.S. Mideast policy. I have observed the collusion between Israeli and American Jews, and I have heard a former U.S. ambassador say he and his colleagues simply assumed that anything known to them was immediately known in Tel Aviv. In a democracy, this kind of thing cannot continue indefinitely.

John K. Moriarty, Fairfax, VA

Remember the Rescuers

To The Washington Post. Nov. 11, 1997 (as published).

I fear that The Post's article "Pope Assails Inaction During Holocaust" [news story, Nov. 1] does many Catholics and clergy an injustice by giving only part of the story. In 1939 my husband and his 10-year-old sister were among the 15,000 or so Jewish children spirited out of Austria on the children's transport trains. Eventually they arrived in England and safe haven with relatives, and my husband's parents were able to get out of Austria a year later. Many in his family were not so fortunate, however. Some died in concentration camps.

But two of his relatives survived the war in France, thanks to the efforts of Catholics. An uncle was hidden for years in a convent, where he repaid the kindness by cooking for the nuns. An aunt, who returned home one day to find that her husband and in-laws had been arrested and taken away, found refuge with a family of Catholics who were complete strangers to her. These people arranged false identity papers, taught her every Catholic prayer, saw to it that she never missed Mass and even took her with them on a pilgrimage to Lourdes—not to proselytize but to save her life. At Lourdes, when this aunt went to make confession, she began to cry. She said to the priest, "I don't belong here, I am a Jew." The priest replied, "You are not to worry. No one will give you away."

Pope Pius XII rightly can be criticized for his actions during World War II. He was clearly not the man for the times, and anti-Semitism was indeed rampant, particularly in Eastern Europe. But we should not forget that Vatican radio was the first media source to break the news of the deportation of Europe's Jews. More important, we should not forget the many priests, nuns and other clergy who were sent to concentration camps for speaking out against the Nazis— more than 1,500 at Dachau alone—nor the many Catholics and Protestants who risked their lives and families by being living examples of their faith.

Candace Singer, Fairfax, VA

Israel's Long History of Persecuting Christians

To the Charlotte Observer, Aug. 21, 1997 (as published).

In response to "How can Jews help world's Christians deter persecution?" (Aug. 18 Viewpoint):

In mentioning examples of countries where Christians are currently persecuted, Rabbi A. James Rudin omits Israel.

Christians have been persecuted in the State of Israel since its founding. An estimated 50,000 of the 714,000 Palestinians who were catastrophically made refugees in 1948 were Christians, and to this day churches stand empty in villages from which their Christian inhabitants were expelled.

Recent popes have expressed concern that Christian shrines held sacred in the Holy Land would be like museums without the warmth of Christian witnesses. Long-standing Vatican requests for international guarantees for Jerusalem remain unheeded.

In the meantime Israeli authorities have stepped up the process, tantamount to ethnic cleansing, of purging longtime Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, some of whom are Christians. Moreover, the Israeli government drags its feet in signing the accord with the Vatican that would grant juridical status to the Catholic Church and thus the "legal personality" to, among other rights, argue in Israeli courts its claims on behalf of persecuted Christians.

Finally, Rabbi Rudin's solicitude for those persecuted for religious reasons would make Christians more comfortable if it also included an ecumenical outreach to the Muslim offspring of our common progenitor Abraham.

Rev. Francis P. Gillespie, Charlotte, NC (The writer is pastor, Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church.)

Christian Schools in Turkey

To The Washington Post, Oct. 25, 1997 (as published).

John P. Nasou's Oct. 16 letter, "Christian Schools in Turkey," is full of misinformation in its description of religious freedom and private education in Turkey.

Greeks, Armenians and Christians of other denominations—as well as Jews—founded and operated schools in Turkey for decades. Not only are they still serving the small Christian community, but they also enjoy so much prestige that hundreds of thousands of Turkish students compete in exams every year for the privilege to attend them. Hundreds of graduates of those schools, particularly Robert College in Istanbul, which was established in 1863 by American Baptists when Turkey was still under Ottoman rule, are now immigrants in the United States.

The letter deliberately tries to paint a picture of constant violence against other religious groups in Turkey. The only attack one can speak of happened in the early 1960s, when a riot erupted in response to the massacres of Turkish Cypriots. It was wrong and the perpetrators were punished promptly.

The Theological Seminary in Heybeliada was closed in 1971 as the result of an overhaul of the Turkish educational system. All private tertiary institutions were made public and placed under government regulations. Then in 1982, the new Turkish constitution decreed that all religious education was to be provided only at public schools and universities. The new regulation must have been motivated by the fear of rising Islamic fundamentalism rather than by a desire to close down the seminary. Nevertheless, the seminary's situation is a result of the same law and can be changed only when the laws are amended.

Mr. Nasou's use of the words "Turkish hordes" attacking Constantinople, called Istanbul for nearly 600 years, is evidence of his prejudice toward Turks. These defamatory remarks do not diminish the fact that the Ottomans and later the people of Turkey have opened their lands to many persecuted peoples throughout the centuries—Christians, Jews and Muslims alike—and have created a wonderful multi-religious and multi-cultural heritage.

Guler Koknar, Executive Director, Assembly of Turkish American Associations, Washington, DC

Who Are the Mideast Victims?

To the St. Petersburg Times, Sept. 24, 1997 (as published).

For some years I have struggled with the question of just who is the victim of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If I am to believe the fundamentalist Christian preachers and the American press, it is the Israelis. After all, the Palestinians are terrorists willing to sacrifice their own lives in order to kill or maim a few Israelis in a crowded market, bus or checkpoint and they continue to resist surrendering their homes and lands to the "God-chosen" rightful owners of the land. Why don't they just give up and disappear into nothingness and make it easy on everyone?

On the other hand, after visiting the occupied territories several times and witnessing the brutal treatment of the Palestinian Christians and Muslims by the Israeli soldiers and settlers and seeing the Palestinian dead and wounded in the hospitals, I began to question that the Zionist Jews are the real victims. This thinking is further substantiated by seeing the Arab homes and villages that have been and are still being destroyed.

On visiting the refugee camps, and hearing the innumerable stories of being forced from their homes and lands by armed terrorists, and with the hopelessness of complete subjugation, I began to believe the Palestinians were the victims.

Then I returned home and read the American newspapers and observed the complete alliance of the American political and religious structures with the aspirations of the Zionist Jews and discovered my helplessness to do anything about it. As a matter of fact, any effort on behalf of fairness for the real victims (the Palestinians) results in vilification, economic sanctions and social censure. It appears that our freedom of opinion must be kept to ourselves—not extended to freedom of speech and freedom of the press—because we then become that monster, an anti-Semite, a complete pariah. Is it not possible to oppose the Zionist ideology and not be considered anti-Jewish?

Oops, now I have identified another victim: people of conscience.

Nancy Friederich, St. Petersburg, FL

The Rantings of Amos Perlmutter

To the Washington Times, Aug. 31, 1997 (as submitted).

I take strong exception to the Arab-bashing, Yasser Arafat-hating, Islamic-distorting ranting of Professor Amos Perlmutter. He disgusts me. Perlmutter insists on unfairly blaming the violence of the West Bank and Gaza on its innocent victims, the Palestinians, rather than on the occupying power, Zionist Israel.

Collective punishment is wrong, too, whether it is practiced by Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin or Perlmutter's hero, Binyamin Netanyahu, or as I prefer to call him, "Bend-the-truth Yahoo." There is no justification for Netanyahu's closure of the occupied territories. The Israelis also continue to violate, with impunity, both U.N. Resolution 242 and the Fourth Geneva Convention by their immoral and unlawful settlement policies.

I feel sorry for Professor Perlmutter's students at American University. They are entitled to a teacher who appreciates the finer democratic values of this Republic and who doesn't come off as an apologist for Zionist expansionism.

And, finally, our State Department should adopt, as the late diplomat and author, George Ball, and others have strongly advocated, "an even-handed policy in the Middle East."

Bill Hughes, Baltimore, MD

Gramm's AIPAC Outing

To Senator Phil Gramm, Washington, DC, Aug. 12, 1997

Today's Houston Chronicle reported your comments on suspending aid to the Palestinians because they have not satisfied Israeli security demands. You are quoted as having said that the "Palestinians are not living up to their part of the bargain."

I find it ironic that you made the comment while on a trip to Israel paid for by AIPAC. I realize that Palestinians do not have much of a constituency in Texas, but I keep hoping that you and your colleagues in Washington will wake up some morning and decide to be fair and equitable on the whole question of the Middle East. Even the State Department, in its annual report, has cited Israel for persistent and egregious human rights violations.

Since you are critical of the Palestinians, what is your opinion of the following Israeli actions?

* Israel continues its settlement building both in Jerusalem and on the West Bank in clear violation of the intent of Oslo

* Israel continues to demolish homes and hold Arabs without charges if they are suspected (not convicted) of security offenses

* Israel is denying residence permits to U.S. citizen-Arabs from Jerusalem, forcing them to leave their homes

* The Israeli security services and vigilantes have killed more Arabs than there have been Jewish victims of terror since Oslo

* Israel continues to attack its neighbor, Lebanon, killing civilians in air strikes using U.S.-provided weapons

And what about here on the home front?

* Israel has again been identified by the CIA as a leader in stealing our technology

* Israel's spy at the highest level of our government, "Mega," continues to operate

* Israel continues to get nearly $6 billion per year from the American taxpayer while U.S. domestic programs are cut. The per capita income of an Israeli Jew is ca. $19,000 coupled with free medical care and education. How can you justify the handout?

Is your constituency the American people and the high ideals we stand for or is it only the Israel lobby with its political and financial muscle? I hope AIPAC gives you a lot of money in your next re-election bid. It's not worth selling out for only 30 pieces of silver.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., The Woodlands, TX

Epitome of Corrupt Politics

To the Houston Chronicle, Aug. 21, 1997 (as published).

U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) is visiting Israel with all expenses paid by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Israel's U.S. lobby ("Skeptical U.S. Congress may shut off aid to Palestinians," Chronicle, Aug. 12). Why isn't he "visiting" his constituents here in Texas? Isn't that the purpose of the congressional "summer recess"?

And is it a coincidence that he gets this expense-paid trip only three weeks after he casts his vote to continue aid to Israel?

As Israel wines and dines our senator, he threatens to support a cut in badly needed aid for the Palestinian people while supporting our lavish aid to Israel. This does not give the "appearance" of wrongdoing, but, rather, is the epitome of political corruption.

R. L. Gabler, Kingwood, TX